I think it was clear and overt during the Bush era that there were some dubious claims thrown around about "we need this to prevent another 9/11", with "this" being vague, broad, varying with the particular speaker. It was disappointing to many when Obama embraced some of these conclusions.
I based this on my theory that there are things that the general public does not know, and will never know, that influence the decisions POTUS makes. Until you are privy to that information, it’s easy to take a contrarian viewpoint. Once you have the information, and the responsibility for making decisions that might save American lives, it’s a lot harder.
I’m not saying that any of these policies are right or wrong, or that the general public should be kept in the dark about whatever it is we’re being kept in the dark about. It’s just a theory I have about how the world works. I have no way of proving or disproving it, but I think the evidence supports it.
If it weren't partisan politics, you wouldn't be seeing roughly 15 senior officials from the NSA/CIA/FBI leaving the public sector to take jobs at CNN & MSNBC.
I'm curious why most people don't find this to be deeply disturbing.
The era of rampant, selective intelligence leaks to the media started when these very same people were in administration.
The only real secret intelligence is tactical (military or otherwise), because we aren't quite that craven, exceptions notwithstanding. Everything else is intrinsically political and has a very short half-life as a secret. Work for a few years inside the Beltway, especially with or near people who are connected (e.g. lobbyists, think tank scholars, appointees, Pentagon staffers, international orgs, etc), and this becomes obvious immediately. Secrets are social currency more important than money and maybe even title. Everybody shares secrets, albeit usually in an obnoxious, obfuscated, pretentious way; even the interns.
I think you are conflating a few issues.
On the one hand there is the bipartisan surveillance issue that Snowden shined a light on.
More recently we have a bunch of Trump and anti-Trump narratives and sometimes conspiracy theories.
I suspect some people on the thread have squished those into one. But the intelligence community is likely complicated, motivations multi-faceted, people holding diverse opinions. I don't think these things are the same, or you can dismiss or endorse one cause for the other.
2) CNN and MSNBC absolutely are partisan entities, though CNN does try hard to appear less so. As long as MSNBC keeps employing Maddow and she keeps pushing debunked conspiracy theories, they will absolutely be seen as partisan. Her coverage as of late has been absolutely disgraceful and a huge stain on that network, IMO.
3) None of what you said addresses the very alarming fact that the heads of our intelligence agencies are taking senior posts in these media organizations.
If you look into the folks who were in the spotlight pushing "we need this to prevent another 9/11" they were mostly former military and some with intelligence connections... but the real connection was their political connections.
Many outright stated the information they were provided to go on TV with came from politically associated groups not some secretive internal policy. In fact intelligence groups internally pushed back on some of the claims and political appointees ignored them.
Relative to what Hillary Clinton's or Marco Rubio's foreign policy would have been, sure, Obama was a model of probity, but this is damning with faint praise.
I think a lot of our problems stem from the undermining of our system of checks and balances, and whatever is up with the fourth estate. I'm digressing, but I recall a time when journalists would be roasting public officials over these issues.